


Bodyguarding 101

by journeythroughtherain



Series: Bucky's bodyguard adventures [3]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Bodyguard, Alternate Universe - No Powers, First Meetings, Jarvis is a troll, M/M, Misunderstandings, Protective Bucky Barnes, single parent tony stark
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-17
Updated: 2019-10-17
Packaged: 2020-12-21 10:33:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,692
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21073451
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/journeythroughtherain/pseuds/journeythroughtherain
Summary: Bucky has just escorted Harley home from school, when he notices something isoffabout the penthouse. It doesn't take him long to realize what is missing.JARVIS is gone.And that can only spell trouble.





	Bodyguarding 101

**Author's Note:**

> This is set some time after Wake up call, and Bucky gets his first taste of proper bodyguarding.

"... And then he did this weird thing with his eyes that looked sooo icky, but like, awesome icky, and then Jaden screamed so hard that Brianna spat her milk all over Chloe's lunch!"

Bucky chuckled, though less at the story and more at Harley's dramatically acted out rendition of the event as they walked up to the Tower doors. Waving hands excitedly while speaking was yet another trait Harley seemed to share with his dad. Bucky nodded to the receptionist as they made their way over to the elevator, while Harley greeted every employee they passed by name.

If it had been up to Bucky, they'd take the private elevator from the garage straight up to the penthouse to ensure the safest possible transit from school to home, but Harley had argued that the entire Tower was safe, and that he liked saying hello to the various SI personnel on his way. 

Bucky indulged him, _not_ because of the puppy eyes, no matter what Tony claimed about Bucky being wrapped around fingers, but because despite Harley being full of funny stories about his classmates from school, he suspected the kid wasn't getting along with them as well as he tried to make it seem. Being both smarter than most of his peers and also recognized as the son of _the_ Tony Stark — despite going by 'Keener' himself — likely wasn't helping either. 

So, he let Harley have his way, and instead hung back and watched as the kid bounced from person to person in the lobby, all of them smiling at the familiar sight.

After a while he herded a reluctant Harley into the elevator cab — no matter how smart the kid was, he still needed time to do his homework — and pushed the button for their floor. Bucky had originally planned on dropping Harley off at the tower and then be on his way today, since he'd promised to pick up Steve from the airport after work. Unfortunately, his bike had refused to start this morning and he'd had to tell Steve to get a cab instead. 

Watching the floor number tick higher and higher as they got closer to the penthouse, Bucky idly wondered if Tony might want to help him check it over. Then he mentally smacked himself over the head for daydreaming about spending time with Tony when it would never happen. _'Don't get your hopes up, Bucky. No need to set yourself up for disappointment.'_

As they stepped off the cab and into the living room, Bucky froze. Quickly, he grabbed Harley's shoulder to keep him from moving further inside. There was something about the room that felt… _off_. Quickly scanning the environment, he couldn't see anything out of order, or that had moved.

One of Tony's suit jackets hung over the back of the couch as it had been since the Gala last Friday, and there was still the traces of Harley's breakfast left on the coffee table where he'd been in too much of a hurry this morning to clean it up before school. The blinds were down, just like Bucky had left them earlier, but as he opened his mouth to ask JARVIS to lift them and let in some more light he realized what was missing. 

JARVIS.

He usually greeted them first thing when Harley got home from school, welcoming them home, but he hadn't this time. JARVIS _never_ malfunctioned like that. Someone had gotten to him, disabled him, and that could only mean a break-in.

Turning around, he knelt down in front of Harley and spoke with a low voice. 

"Harley. Jarvis isn't responding, so I need to do a sweep of the apartment before I let you in, in case something is wrong. I want you to wait right here — If you hear fighting, you're going to take the elevator down to the main floor and get Happy, okay?"

Knowing better than to talk out loud, Harley nodded, eyes wide with worry. Satisfied with Harley’s response, Bucky began his sweep.

Sneaking forth, he checked every room carefully for signs of intruders. Nothing in the living room, nor the kitchen. The bedrooms were clear. Bathrooms too. He ended up outside Tony's lab not having found anything, but then again, if someone _had_ broken in, Tony's personal lab would be the most likely place to find them.

He'd only been there once, himself, for his checkup — and hadn't that been an experience — but he knew that there were only a limited number of people with access to it and none of them were supposed to be here today. Then again, if this burglar was able to disable JARVIS like they had, they'd probably found a way past Tony's other security measures as well.

He carefully tried the door and found it unlocked. Breathing out, he took a moment to prepare himself for an eventual confrontation before slowly, slowly sliding open the door and slipping in. 

The lights were on and there was no music playing, so he could easily pinpoint the location of the intruder where he was standing bent over a desk, muttering to himself. From his place by the door Bucky couldn't see exactly what it was he was looking at, but he recognized the characteristic color of blueprint paper. It didn't really matter which exact blueprint the person has found, though — any design of Tony's was too valuable to fall into someone else's hands.

He couldn't see the bots anywhere, but worried though he was, calling out in hope of an answer would only have revealed him to the intruder. Instead he carefully crept forward, minding his feet so he didn't step on any of the wayward scrap laying around. 

Bucky had asked about them when he'd been down here, but apparently Tony had a "system" of some sorts that Bucky couldn't even begin to wrap his head around. Right now he wished that system had included shelves, because it became increasingly harder to avoid tripping up and alerting the stranger to his presence.

The guy (?) was wearing an oversized hoodie with the hood up that made it hard to determine age or any recognizable features — probably deliberate, to make him harder to identify even if he got caught on camera. He was a bit gangly, Bucky could tell that much from what he could see, and perhaps a bit shorter than Bucky himself. 

_'Young,'_ Bucky thought. Maybe that was how he got into the building; by pretending to be one of the many young interns Tony had employed in his various departments. Maybe he even was one, but had decided to make use of his position to get closer to the workshop, steal some blueprints to sell for extra cash. He might've gotten away with it too, if Bucky hadn't come up with Harley today.

To think that if his bike hadn't refused to start this morning, Harley would've had to face him alone. Bucky felt a cold rush through him at the thought of what the intruder could have done to the kid if Harley had seen him. He welcomed the feeling, using it to sharpen his concentration in preparation for his next action.

Three steps more, two, then one — and he grabbed the intruder by his arms, forcing them behind his back. His left arm was more than capable of holding both wrists as he used the right to pin down the person to the table by his neck.

The intruder yelped and tried to spin around, but Bucky's grip was solid and unyielding.

"Ow, ow, ow! What are you doing?" The guy squirmed back and forth until he managed to turn his head just enough that he could meet Bucky's eyes. "Who are you? What are you doing in Mr. Stark's lab?"

Bucky snorted, but let up the pressure a bit. He wasn't intending to harm the guy after all. "Who am I? I'm gonna have to ask you the same. How did you get in here?"

Despite being held down and immobilized he managed to throw Bucky a look that could only be described as offended. "What do you mean, ‘how did you get in?’, Mr. Stark gave me the codes!"

"Yeah, right. Tony doesn't give out his lab codes to random interns, and if he had, he would have told me. Now tell me, are you working alone or did someone send you to steal those blueprints?"

Bucky had to tighten his grip as the intruder began wriggling around again, harder this time. He was stronger than he looked, but Bucky currently had all the advantages so he didn't stand a chance of escaping either way. Finally he huffed and gave up, going slack in Bucky's grip. He sounded worryingly young when he spoke up again, but, Bucky reassured himself, that could very well be because of the petulant tone. 

"I'm not a thief. I would never do that to Mr. Stark. Or anyone! Why won't you — never mind, why am I even arguing with you," he cut himself off, before turning his head to the nearest camera. "JARVIS, help me out, would you?"

So he wasn't disabled after all? Bucky felt his suspicion being slowly replaced by confusion, but he refused to let up his hold until he knew exactly what was going on here. 

"Mr. Barnes, Mr. Parker, may I be of assistance in clearing up this little misunderstanding?"

If it had been any other AI than Tony's, Bucky would've been sure he had imagined the amused tone lacing the question. 

"Jarvis," he asked, far from amused himself, "who is this guy, and what is he doing in Tony's lab?"

“Apologies, Mr. Barnes, but I was under instructions from Mr. Parker not to speak up about any visitors, as to not ruin the surprise.” 

“Surprise? What are you talking about?”

Before JARVIS could answer, Bucky heard someone move near the lab entrance and whipped his head around only to see Harley hesitating in the doorway.

"Bucky? JARVIS said everything was fine, so I didn't want to wait anymore. What are you doing?"

Bucky watched Harley helplessly as he moved towards them, keeping himself from yelling at him to stay as far as possible from the unknown threat in the room. "Harley, I think it would be better if—"

Before he could finish, Harley gasped and... 

Lit up at the sight of the intruder?

"Peter! You're back!"

Surprised by Harley's cheerful exclamation Bucky let go this time when the guy — Peter, apparently — twisted himself free from his grip.

"Harley!" Peter cheered before he grabbed the kid under his arms and threw him into the air to Harley's delight, going by the storm of shrieking giggles. After spinning around a few times with Harley in his arms, the kid laughing all the while, Peter put him down and ruffled his hair. 

"Hey, little guy, how 'ya been?"

Bucky interrupted them with a pointed cough before Harley had a chance to begin his usual ramble, bringing their attention back to him. 

"Anyone want to explain what's going on here?"

Peter blinked, then narrowed his eyes at Bucky. "Yeah, I'd like to know too. Like, why did you suddenly just attack me out of nowhere?"

"Hey, it wasn't out of nowhere," Bucky defended. "You looked damn suspicious snooping around Tony's papers like that. And I _still_ don't know who you are."

"I don't know who you are either, but I still haven't tried to— to rip your arm out without provocation!" Peter sniped, sullenly rubbing his shoulder.

Bucky snorted. He'd seen how perfectly fine that arm was — Peter had no problem hoisting Harley around not even a minute ago. "You're being dramatic. Besides, someone already beat you to it," he said, giving Peter a little wave with his metal hand. 

He watched, amused, as Peter blanched at the sight. His expression turned a hilarious mixture of embarrassed at his accidental misstep and a burgeoning curiosity that Bucky recognized from both Harley and Tony when they had first seen his arm. 

He let go of his poker face when Harley punched his arm. "Stop picking on my brother, Bucky," he chided, but even as he spoke he was failing to hide his own little smirk. Bucky chuckled and nudged Harley's shoulder back playfully.

"Well that's no fun—" he began, before properly registering Harley's words. "Wait, your _brother?_"

"Yeah, got a problem with that?" 

Peter had shaken off his earlier awkwardness, and now looked a bit too smug for Bucky's liking. Now that he knew to look for it, though, he could recognize some of his mannerisms and speech patterns as distinctly familiar after having spent all this time with Tony and Harley. _'Huh'_.

Bucky's sudden scrutiny had Peter twitching after a while, so Bucky decided to put him out of his misery and stuck out a hand. 

"Seems we got off on the wrong foot, so I say we try this over. I'm James Barnes, also known as Bucky, assigned bodyguard to this little fella," he grinned at Harley, who pouted at being called little, just like Tony, "for the last month or so."

Peter took his hand — and there was that deceptively strong grip again. "Peter Parker, Harley's big brother, I go to MIT, visiting home for the weekend."

At their side, Harley's face fell. "Aw, really? Only the weekend?"

"Yeah, unfortunately" Peter smiled sadly, "But next time I'll be home for the entire week, so don't worry!"

That had Harley brightening up again before running over to tackle Peter into a hug. Then he was off again, yelling something about showing Peter... _something_, probably related to his recent school projects if Bucky were to guess. 

The silence that fell after his departure was awkward despite the two of them having cleared up the misunderstanding. Bucky couldn't for the life of him come up with anything to say. He'd become too used to the cornucopias of weird conversation topics that were Tony and Harley — barely having to start a conversation on his own since he met the two left him a little out of practice. And really, shouldn't Peter have inherited the same chatter gene?

Though… maybe he had. If so, based on his experience with the rest of the family, Bucky estimated it would take Peter just about three more seconds before he—

"Soooo," Peter began, and Bucky gave himself a mental pat on the back for his accurate calculations.

"What's up with the arm? I mean, if it's not rude to ask — well, of course it's rude, it's your arm, and you lost it, that's what the prosthetic is for after all, probably in some horrible event that I'm reminding you of right now and I'm _so_ sorry, I don't mean to make you uncomfortable except that doesn't really help much when I am already making you uncomfortable and I'll just stop talking now I think. Sorry."

Peter had gone an impressive fire-truck red from his impromptu speech, and Bucky couldn't help but smile. "You wanna take a look at it? Tony and Harley both seem to have grown tired of it after the first week—" not actually true, of course, Tony still regularly asked if Bucky was comfortable with it or if he needed a tune-up, and Harley had gotten it in his head to devise a way to install _lasers_, to Bucky's horror, "—and I kinda miss it, sometimes. Knock yourself out."

Peter hesitated for around two seconds before nearly tripping over himself in his haste to get to Bucky's side, excitedly babbling in a way Bucky had come to find comfortingly familiar. Soon after, Harley returned arms full of various blueprints. 

What _wasn't_ comforting, however, was the very familiar glint in both of their eyes when Harley revealed his schematics over a complete set of miniature laser fingers. 

Oh well. If they did any damage or permanent changes at least Bucky would have an excuse to spend time with Tony again. He relaxed and let the sound of eager chatter wash over him, trusting that if worse came to worst, Tony would always be able to fix him right back up again.

**Author's Note:**

> Surprise!
> 
> And yes, JARVIS totally stayed silent on purpose even as he realized what would happen. Because sometimes, following orders are more fun than disobeying them. 
> 
> So, next installment might have some explanations regarding what is going on here with Peter, and maybe some about Harley too. Oh, and Tony will definitely show up in that one, I promise...!


End file.
